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their authority," and that "it would be preferable to appoint officials with the title of consuls," I am reported to have said that I did not object to the title of " Residents," and that I thought that if they confined themselves to their proper and legitimate duties they would be of the highest service both to the country and the Rajahs; and it was at this point that I called special attention to the fact that these Residents were to be sent at the distinct request and entreaty of the Rajahs themselves.

29. Leaving this point, however, I ought to notice the 18th, 20th, and 21st para- graphs of your Despatch. In the first you quote Sir A. Clarke's description of Mr. Birch's qualification for the office of Resident. I cannot admit that the question of the nature of the office to be assumed is affected by the fact that Mr. Birch possessed in an eminent degree qualities which would be equally valuable to a ruler as to the adviser of a ruler in a country like Perak.

In the 20th and 21st paragraphs you refer to my "apparent acquiescence" in the reports of the Residents, which you find in my expressions that I had read them with interest and trusted that peace and prosperity might be further developed.". I own here to some surprise. The language which you quote in evidence of my opinion on 30 grave and important a matter is little more than an ordinary acknowledgment; but it was immediately followed by two other paragraphs which you omit to notice, reminding you that the appointments had not been confirmed, and that the character of all advice required to be carefully considered, and it is obvious that these passages preclude the inference you draw.

30. Having shown in the previous portion of this Despatch that the Residential scheme as approved by Her Majesty's Government was very far from being what you have supposed, it is of course impossible for me to admit that the system you intro- duced when the proclamations were issued, providing for the government of Perak in the name of the Sultan by British Commissioners responsible to you, was merely a slight modification of the existing system as already approved. An essential difference of policy has indeed been admitted in the colony, for I find in the report of the debate in the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlements of 5th November last, which you have transmitted to me, it was then said that, unfortunately, events had proved the policy which 12 months since was considered the best that could possibly be adopted, to be barren of results, because its strength consisted only in what might be called moral force. It had been found impossible to carry out that principle, and it must give place to the more vigorous policy which His Excellency had now entered upon, and of which the speaker had no doubt the result would be greater, at the same time that coral force must give place to physical force.

I have, however, said enough as to the incorrectness of your present contention; and it remains for me to point out the objections to which Her Majesty's Government consider that your policy would in any case have been open, and the reasons which compel me, having regard to the disastrous consequences that ensued on its adoption, to convey to

their disapproval of it. you

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31. It is hardly possible to maintain that the system you proposed to introduce was adopted with the full assent of the Native Chiefs. You do indeed in your Despatch of 16th October Bay that you had been informed that "some of the Chiefs, anxious for a better system, and desirous of putting an end to the divided state of Perak, wished the British "Government to take the country altogether under their control," and that you found that this representation was quite correct in the case of Yusuf; but I find that when you made this suggestion to Ismail and to Abdullah, they both, so far from readily assenting, put you off in the first instance by asking to consult other Chiefs before giving a definite reply; and though Abdullah subsequently wrote you a letter expressing con- currence in the arrangement, it was after you had distinctly threatened him in the letter of 27th September with the following ultimatum : "Now we propose to our friend that officers of the British Government shall govern the country in the name of our friend. If our friend agrees to this, our friend will still be recognized as Sultan and receive a large allowance, but if our friend does not agree to this, we cannot help our friend, and our friend will be no longer Sultan.”

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In another place you state "I determined, if the Sultan could be induced to agree, to adopt the policy of governing Perak by means of British officers in his name;"

and I cannot but conclude that, with a view to getting a nominal assent to a system which deprived the Chiefs of the last semblance of power, and was naturally repulsive to them, you exercised a pressure which was obviously inexpedient unless it was to be sup- ported by something more than moral force, and which could not have been justified

unless you

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had been previously instructed that Her Majesty's Government would sanction

a forcible intervention.

In the 89th paragraph of your present Despatch you admit that you "erred in com- mon with all concerned in supposing you could have intervened in the affairs of Perak without a display of force, and that a military force must, sooner or later in greater or less degree have become necessary to support the position which had been assumed;" but a careful perusal of your description of the general aspect of affairs in Perak, with its divided sovereignty, and the powerful semi-independent Chiefs such as the Maharajah Lela, clearly shows that the result might have been earlier anticipated, and consequently that the precautions which you took against resistance as mentioned in the 90th paragraph of your Despatch were altogether inadequate.

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32. But a further objection that I have to take to the policy you decided on adopting arises from the fact that it could only have been possible to recede from it with extreme difficulty.

You say

"This course may be temporary if in the course of events we found any Par 8. Chief like the Maharajah of Johore who had the necessary strength of character, and who could and would undertake the government of the State, when it would be easy to hand over the government to him;" but I do not find that there was any reasonable probability of such an event occurring, and to point to possible results in the event of certain improbable contingencies is not a sufficient justification of a doubtful policy. On the other hand it is quite certain that grave responsibilities must be incurred from the moment that a country is professedly governed by British Commis- soners. Supposing British capital and Chinese labour to have been thereby attracted to Perak, powerful interests would certainly have protested in the event of the British Government subsequently determining as you contemplated to withdraw from those responsibilities.

33. It is, moreover, impossible for me to concur in the view expressed in the 77th and following paragraphs of your Despatch as to the absence of connexion between the adoption of your policy and the occurrence of Mr. Birch's death and the consequent events. Whether or no there was such an amount of dissaffection that some struggle was ultimately inevitable I cannot, with the facts before me, pretend to say, but the evidence you bring forward to show that in any case an outbreak was to be antici- pated appears to me far from conclusive. The erection of a stockade in a Malay country is not of such rare occurrence that I can accept your deduction from this and other similar evidence that even if no proclamation had been issued,

"An attack might have been made upon the Residency which might have led to a combination and confederacy which would probably have caused an obstinate war and still greater loss of life." But if it was clear that discontent existed in various quarters it seems strange that you should have entered upon so serious a policy as that envolved in the Issue of the Proclamation except after adopting full and well considered precautions.

After a complete review of all the circumstances of the case, I can come to no other conclusion than that the existing discontent, which probably had its origin in the assumption by the Residents of an authority in excess of that which had been con- templated by Her Majesty Government when the Pangkore engagement was approved, was materially increased by the mode in which you induced the Perak Chiefs to give an involuntary assent to a system which deprived them of their privileges and powers; while the issue of the proclamation in an ill-advised manner at an isolated place would seem to have been the more immediate provocation of the outrage from which the present crisis has arisen.

34. And here it may be as well to allude to the argument which in several places in your recent Despatches you have drawn from the warning which I instructed you to convey to the Chiefs who entered into the Perak engagement that H. M. Government would look to the exact fulfilment of the pledges voluntarily given and would hold responsible those who violated their solemn engagements. This was simply a message to be delivered by you to the Chiefs, and cannot be construed as giving you authority to modify the system which had been contemplated in the treaty, in the event of that system not being successful, still less as giving you an extraordinary discretion to enforce certain provisions of the engagement in a mode which, as I have already pointed out to you, necessarily involved the support of the Resident by material force, and was consequently diametrically opposed to the policy which had been approved by Her Majesty's Government.

35. If the system introduced by your predecessor had in your opinion failed, “from causes fatal to its successful working" as the 47th and 56th paragraphs of your present Despatch would imply, your first duty was clearly to consult Her Majesty's Government explaining fully the state of affairs as they presented themselves to you, before deciding

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